North Korea’s highest court sentenced an American tourist to 15 years in prison with hard labor for subversion on Wednesday, weeks after authorities presented him to media and he tearfully confessed that he had tried to steal a propaganda banner.
Otto Warmbier, a University of Virginia undergraduate, was convicted and sentenced in a one-hour trial in North Korea’s Supreme Court.
He was charged with subversion under Article 60 of North Korea’s criminal code. The court held that he had committed a crime “pursuant to the U.S. government’s hostile policy toward (the North), in a bid to impair the unity of its people after entering it as a tourist.”
North Korea regularly accuses Washington and Seoul of sending spies to overthrow its government to enable the U.S.-backed South Korean government to take control of the Korean Peninsula.
Tensions are particularly high following North Korea’s recent nuclear test and rocket launch, and massive joint military exercises now underway between the U.S. and South Korea that the North sees as a dress rehearsal for invasion.
The University of Virginia said it was aware of the reports about Warmbier and remained in touch with his family, but would have no additional comment at this time.
Before the trial, the 21-year-old from Wyoming, Ohio, said he had tried to steal a propaganda banner as a trophy for an acquaintance who wanted to hang it in her church. That would be grounds in North Korea for a subversion charge.
Trials for foreigners facing similar charges in North Korea are generally short and punishments severe. Warmbier was arrested as he tried to leave the country in early January. He was in North Korea with a New Year’s tour group.
U.S. tourism to North Korea is legal. Arrests of tourists are rare but the U.S. State Department strongly advises against such travel.
Further complicating matters, Washington and Pyongyang do not have diplomatic relations. The Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang acts as a go-between in consular issues when U.S. citizens run afoul of North Korean authorities.
North Korea announced Warmbier’s arrest in late January, saying he committed an anti-state crime with “the tacit connivance of the U.S. government and under its manipulation.” It remains unclear how the U.S. government was allegedly connected to Warmbier’s actions.
Warmbier had been staying at the Yanggakdo International Hotel. It is common for sections of tourist hotels to be reserved for North Korean staff and off-limits to foreigners.
In a tearful statement made before his trial, Warmbier told a gathering of reporters in Pyongyang he tried to take the banner as a trophy for the mother of a friend who said she wanted to put it up in her church.
He said he was offered a used car worth $10,000 if he could get a banner and was also told that if he was detained and didn’t return, $200,000 would be paid to his mother in the form of a charitable donation.
Warmbier said he accepted the offer because his family was “suffering from very severe financial difficulties.”
Warmbier also said he had been encouraged by the university’s “Z Society,” which he said he was trying to join. The magazine of the university’s alumni association describes the Z Society as a “semi-secret ring society” founded in 1892 that conducts philanthropy, puts on honorary dinners and grants academic awards.
In previous cases, people who have been detained in North Korea and made a public confession often recant those statements after their release.
In the past, North Korea has held out until senior U.S. officials or statesmen came to personally bail out detainees, all the way up to former President Bill Clinton, whose visit in 2009 secured the freedom of American journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling.
In November 2014, U.S. spy chief James Clapper went to Pyongyang to bring home Matthew Miller, who had ripped up his visa when entering the country and was serving a six-year sentence on an espionage charge, and Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, who had been sentenced to 15 years for alleged anti-government activities.
Jeffrey Fowle, another U.S. tourist from Ohio detained for six months at about the same time as Miller, was released just before that and sent home on a U.S. government plane. Fowle left a Bible in a local club hoping a North Korean would find it, which is considered a criminal offense in North Korea.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Hey, students, let’s eliminate a few countries from Spring Break and Summer vacation trips. The first would be North Korea. Next would be Iran, as well as most Middle East countries. (If you can’t drink booze and wear skimpy clothing–don’t go!) You students are supposed to be smart. Start with smarter vacations!!
Well, don’t expect O or H to go get him.
This student should have known better than to think they could steal something and carry it home with them. North Korea isn’t the best place to go to carry out a college prank.
When people visit a foreign country they need to understand they represent the United States. People form an opinion about our country by the contact they have with American tourists. Although 15 years of hard labor seem a little severe, I have no problem seeing this student get punished for his actions.
C`mon, he`s 21!!!! Who hasn’t done something stoopid in and around that age. He is NOT mature enough to understand their strict policies over there as he is unfamiliar with that type of government! They are using him for propaganda reasons pure and simple! China could help but……………………!
HE is 21!! old enough to do whatever he wants, ignorance is no excuse. The media is in our face all the time about stupid people who do stupid things. IF you get caught you pay the price no matter how steep.
If he wasn’t some college student (or fresh out of college – I’m not sure) that believes in the left and is offended at every little thing – if he was from the right, he would have know about North Korea. The youngsters on the left will never get it.
C`mon, he`s 21!!!! Who hasn’t done something stoopid in and around that age. He is NOT mature enough to understand their strict policies over there as he is unfamiliar with that type of government! They are using him for propaganda reasons pure and simple! China could help but……………………!
Exactly! He’s 21. If he is mature enough to travel to North Korea, he is mature enough to know their laws, policies, and government and the possible consequences if broken. It’s about time that men and women in America grow up. This is the only country that age can be used as a defense until death. 21 is an adult and time to start acting like one.
You must have skipped a few lines when you were reading. It wasn’t a “prank.” He was financially incentivized. People sometimes do desperate things when they need money. Heck, he could have offered himself as a hunting target for $10,000 (at least shipping the body home would have been simpler logistics). Yes, that’s been done, here in America. And look at all the first-time, long-sentence drug offenders are clogging up our prison system. Ones that didn’t get there by getting addicted to drugs, or greed, but because they had to put food on the table and they couldn’t get any legitimate jobs.
Well, stupid is as stupid does. Why would you go to North Korea to begin with is beyond me. I would say that he’s a goner for a long time. I actually feel sorry for him. Fifteen years is a long time to think about the poor choices you made.
Well according to your position and in keeping with fare play I wonder if you would support an American position if we lock up every North Corean for 15 plus years for shoplifting or J-walking.
This issue is just wrong but until we as a nation stop trying to be an example and start being a leader this crap will never end.
I suggest we join their party and lick up every one of their citizens that break ilium laws and give rhem the maximum penalty prescribed by their laws against Americans.
To bad you weren’t there to get locked up with him. Your post tells me that you have brain disease.
North Korea is a stupid country run by stupid people and and supported by ignorant and stupid people. But never the less, you should do homework before going to a foreign country, especially a communist or muslim country. But anyway stealing is against the law in any country, except for the government crooks!
Just a piss ant. I’m sure a Korean guard will give this man a shovel and tell him that his “Safe Space” is 50′ underground. This should be shown to all these other ungrateful college students who believe that the United States is nothing but the devil.
So much for the Horn News. You evidentially have a different agenda than me since you deleted me – and NO profanity was used. Watch me delete you sorry mother fuckers from my E-mail.
On the Darwin Awards contenders’ list? Typical stupidity from the typical stupid college student today. (I know there are SOME intelligent kids going to college, but they’re the minority today.) Mebbe he’ll become an honorary member of the Z Society! Let us see how long it takes for Mum to receive that promised $200,000! Shame on the woman who talked him into doing this – for her church, no less.
Not so much stupidity as desperation. Maybe with a dash of ignorance about just how guilty-until-forgiven North Korea can be towards Americans.
The answer is simple.
NUKE those asswipes right off the map.
I’m sure the mambo pambis, out there are like man we can’t do that, or some other bullshit. It’s time this country stand up to the tyranny in Washington and turn us around? ?
Twenty one yrs old and stupid. If hes so poor
Who paid his way over there. We have ninetine year old men fighting wars. They
Cant afford to be stupid. Glad nobody
Told him to jump off a bridge.